Category: Homeschooling

Men – I certainly haven’t been around much at Furious Fathering. Homeschooling, shifting home priorities and the focus on becoming a better man for 2017 has made me cut my computer usage dramatically. Too much time on the keyboard and not enough time building a better life and relationships were impacting my world.

That said, I’m going to let some of you guys know that I’m not going to be mixing words very much on this page. I’ve been a bit cautious in what I say to not alienate anyone, but that’s about to change. There are too many men, especially young fathers, that need the straight truth, because no one is really giving it to them, and no one ever gave it to me. I cannot sit idly by and address the issues the same way many in society do every day. In the end, it is producing wimpy men that do not deserve to have their kids, because they will produce little skinny jean wearing confused “men” that will soon be used to destroy the rest of our community. Also, their special “baby momma” will have her ego fed even more and pull the same lame but effective game on the next guy she traps, urrrr loves, or needs as she’s hitting 30 and realizing nobody is checking for her anymore. So it’s time to settle down with that “nice guy”.

Are you that guy?

So if you aren’t ready for some iron-sharpen-iron discussions, you may want to drop out. If you think your life will be better if your special little snowflake that trapped you and pumped out your golden egg came back to you, you might wanna drop out. If you don’t want to see comments that rebuke the belief that your wife or your momma are the next best thing to Mary mother of Jesus, you might want to bounce. You’ve been warned. However, if you want to stay around and see where things go, challenge and exchange, then let’s get Furious with this dialogue, and become/build a better place for real father’s to come and learn how to lead.

Perhaps I could give them the benefit of the doubt if they had a Holocaust version as well. But I wonder why they do not?

I wonder if the game covered the lynchings, rape, family disconnection, in all it’s graphic and horrible detail like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto? Not that it makes it much better, but it would certainly show the inhuman sociological foundation our country is built upon.

To make a game such as this only reinforces the “purpose” for Africans in America, and that is what causes outrage. Now, I may have a different consideration of the game captures the amount of wealth that was created, passed down and still utilized from free slave labor. Is there an alternate ending of what America would have become WITHOUT slavery? It’s a video game right? So we can let our imaginations run wild.

Overall, this is what happens when places either have a lack of diversity or, it could even have been created by a descendent of a slave who now views him or herself from the perspective of the dominant society.

Sadly, the latter is the part that no video game could possibly capture. However, it has been the longest lasting effect of “African Immigration” (as some history books say).

How big was Idlewild? “By the 1950s and early 1960s, Idlewild reached the height of its popularity. During those years nearly 25,000 vacationers made their way to the community, temporarily overwhelmingly the permanent year-round population. During this era Idlewild boasted more than 300 black-owned businesses.” – Blackpast.org

Looking forward to The Comeback!

“Morton’s has been home to music greats such as Aretha Franklin, the Four Tops and Della Reese. Our comfortable, recently renovated guest rooms – some with kitchenettes – Great Room with adjoining large kitchen and cable TV, outdoor open space dotted with lawn chairs, picnic courtyard with umbrella tables and canopied patio are some of our attractions. We provide a warm, inviting place…”- http://www.michigan.org/property/morton-s-motel/

“While the clubs attracted black patrons, they were often examples of interracial mingling. As one Idlewild resident recalled, the clubs filled to capacity every night, and on some nights, “there were more white people in there than blacks. It wasn’t about race, it was about fun…
Idlewild, like other all-black resorts, would not survive the civil rights movement. As formerly white-only clubs and resorts across the nation integrated in the late 1960s, Idlewild went into decline. Its clubs and hotels closed as blacks began to frequent other resorts.” –blackpast.org

“Judith Griffin now lives in New Jersey, but her family would drive from Chicago to Idlewild resort in Michigan every summer. Griffin recalls one trip where her father—one of the few black gastroenterologists at that time—pulled over to save the lives of motorists in a very bad accident. ..Because of discrimination, families like Griffin’s were forced to use what was called “The Green Book.” It was a directory of stops that would serve African Americans on the road.” –http://wmuk.org/post/black-travel-during-jim-crow-illustrated-green-book

Are we ready to talk about the role sex played in the terrorist act in South Carolina as well? Like Elliot Rodger, terrorist in CA who said, “Today I drove through the area near my college and saw some things that were extremely rage-inducing. I passed by this restaurant and I saw this black guy chilling with 4 hot white girls. He didn’t even look good.” sexual inferiority plays a major role in racist ideology.

If you are an African-American male reading this, you have known from your early days of female attraction that “the white woman” was off-limits to you. Like me, if you were around them at school, church or perhaps in your neighborhood, you may have followed the “When in Rome, do as the Romans” dating philosophy. However, and probably as your parents held their breath in fear, you may have tried to date “outside your race”. When you did, I’m sure you were met not with open arms (not even with the church folks), but with warnings by the girl or even her parents with statements like, “You can’t come over as my parents don’t like black guys” or something similar.

Now perhaps you’re on the other side reading this. I willing to bet another dollar to the donut that either you’ve heard your parents say the above, you’ve said it to your kids, or you at least know your friends and/or family have laid this rule down.

This nation has always and continues to perpetuate the stereotype that black men are sexual predators. Many in the dominant-group has or will make it clear that their daughter “better not bring home a black man.” Why would you say that (especially if you call yourself a Christian)? Of course, if you study this nation’s history, you’d see that they have always pinned rape on not just African-Americans, but on the Chinese as well. They claimed that Chinese men on heroine were raping white women, so the drug was made illegal and so were they. Mexicans were said to be raping white woman on marijuana, again, the drug was made illegal and so were they (also note that their labor was no longer needed to build the infrastructure of the country). So once again, we don’t teach the country’s true history, the same tricks work decades after decades…and “hot white girls” are being raped on college campuses so much, they fight to keep the statistics from being reported because it wouldn’t exactly look too cool on the recruiting side (fact check that one…I dare you). Oh, and you can’t blame that one on black men because wez don’t goes to skool remember? So it’s not us doing it…

Why have I been blogging about race and police violence so much? Because it is kids that look like mine that are dying and most in this country do not care, because it’s not their problem. But I fear for my sons and if you have darker skin and are reading this, yours as well.

No matter how much we teach them “proper manners”, how to dress and give a firm handshake, home school them and teach them to remain sexually pure…when the LEO sees them walking, riding a bike (yes, look it up), and of course driving, those lights are getting tripped because our boys are seen as the face of criminal behavior regardless of what the statistics say. It’s in our country’s DNA, and this is why we cannot ignore, and I will not on this blog, the racial component. Therefore, any action even viewed (e.g. Tamir Rice) as defiant can end in death. At best, the LEO will approach them like they’re dealing with a gang member, not the 4x per week, active youth group, mission-taking, home schooled, authority-respecting young man that you’ve tried to raise.

That part, I can tell you from experience, has never changed in this country.

That leads me to today’s post. This is the best article that I’ve read so far concerning the police violence that we are hearing about regularly today.

Personally, I’m tired of the ignorant straw-man arguments about LEOs. Many still use the “you don’t understand how hard it is…” like some Uno Draw Four card to win the discussion. First, that certainly doesn’t work on me, as I know that one doesn’t have to “be in the shoes” to judge right and wrong. If that’s the case, most of the people saying, “What about black-on-black” crime?” have no validity as many are not “black”.

That said, here’s someone who has been there, so what do you think he has to say? Here are some excerpts:

“On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with. That’s a theory from my friend K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force…”.

“And I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, “I can’t believe I live in a country full of ni**er lovers!!!!!!!!” He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law.”

“It is not only white officers who abuse their authority. The effect of institutional racism is such that no matter what color the officer abusing the citizen is, in the vast majority of those cases of abuse that citizen will be black or brown. That is what is allowed.”

“The profession — the endeavor — is noble. But this myth about the general goodness of cops obscures the truth of what needs to be done to fix the system…Institutional racism runs throughout our criminal justice system. Its presence in police culture, though often flatly denied by the many police apologists that appear in the media now, has been central to the breakdown in police-community relationships for decades in spite of good people doing police work.”

“Beyond the many unarmed blacks killed by police, including recently Freddie Gray in Baltimore, other police abuses that don’t result in death foment resentment, distrust, and malice toward police in black and brown communities all over the country. Long before Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown last August, there was a poisonous relationship between the Ferguson, Missouri, department and the community it claimed to serve. For example, in 2009 Henry Davis was stopped unlawfully in Ferguson, taken to the police station, and brutally beaten while in handcuffs. He was then charged for bleeding on the officers’ uniforms after they beat him.”

“About that 15 percent of officers who regularly abuse their power: a major problem is they exert an outsize influence on department culture and find support for their actions from ranking officers and police unions. Chicago is a prime example of this:…The victims were electrically shocked, suffocated, and beaten into false confessions that resulted in many of them being convicted and serving time for crimes they didn’t commit. One man, Darrell Cannon, spent 24 years in prison for a crime he confessed to but didn’t commit. He confessed when officers repeatedly appeared to load a shotgun and after doing so each time put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Other men received electric shocks until they confessed.”

“This allows him to leave viewers with the impression that the recent protests against police brutality are baseless, and that allegations of racism are “totally wrong — just not true.” The reality of police abuse is not limited to a number of “very small incidents” that have impacted black people nationwide, but generations of experienced and witnessed abuse.The media is complicit in this myth-making: notice that the interviewer does not challenge Safir. She doesn’t point out, for example, the over $1 billion in settlementsthe NYPD has paid out over the last decade and a half for the misconduct of its officers. She doesn’t reference the numerous accounts of actual black or Hispanic NYPD officers who have been profiled and even assaulted without cause when they were out of uniform by white NYPD officers.”

“Instead she leads him with her questions to reference the heroism, selflessness, risk, and sacrifice that are a part of the endeavor that is law enforcement, but very clearly not always characteristic of police work in black and brown communities. The staging for this interview — US flag waving, somber-faced officers — is wash, rinse, and repeat with our national media. When you take a job as a police officer, you do so voluntarily. You understand the risks associated with the work. But because you signed on to do a dangerous job does not mean you are then allowed to violate the human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of the people you serve. It’s the opposite. You should protect those rights, and when you don’t you should be held accountable. That simple statement will be received by police apologists as “anti-cop.” It is not.”